Philly Shipyard, Inc. (PSI) has begun construction of up to four new environmentally friendly containerships to be delivered in 2020 and 2021, and is actively promoting the formation of a new entrant into the containership trade between the U.S. mainland and Hawaii to operate these vessels. Presently, this trade route is serviced by only two carriers and is reliant in part on a group of near end-of-life steamships.

When strict MARPOL/ECA emissions regulations take effect in 2020, several of the older steam powered vessels serving the Hawaii trade route today will be out of compliance without substantial, costly modifications. PSI says even if these aging steamships are modified, they would be less reliable and carry significantly higher operating costs than modern vessels in areas such as fuel consumption and manning and maintenance requirements.

The vessels will be capable of operating on LNG fuel and are being designed to address the present market trends for larger sized containers and faster transit times.

These modern containerships will be the direct continuation of the series of two similar 3,600 TEU Aloha class containerships with expected deliveries in 2018 and 2019 that PSI is presently constructing for the Hawaii containership trade.